Threads
Jack Caithness
I know I am my mother’s
mother’s son.
This I know with a clarity strange
in this world of shells
turning rubble into finer dust,
where knowledge means less than
sheer resilience
and nothing is fact
and facts are nothing –
except this cord between us
invisible, umbilical,
transmissible to generations next
in ways that really hold us together.
Even now we are here
above our knives and forks
as if it were nothing,
as if it were chance –
ignorant of so much beyond
this kitchen and its baking bread,
as if her hands had never known
more of hard work than kneading.
She might not last another year
I think, each year,
as we eat and sit and wait
for sharp one-liners
it seems she’s saved up with her breath.
And I keep searching for metaphor
like years without beginning or ending,
only to find myself picturing
a woolly jumper –
complex tangle of strings no good
when I really mean
a pair of socks in my wardrobe
knitted by my grandmother
and growing holes I can’t repair –
this broken language no good either,
for darning.
I must learn to knit.
~
Jack Caithness was born in the UK to Finnish and English parents. He studied English Literature at Durham University, and now works in publishing marketing in Notting Hill. Jack was longlisted (top 15) to be Young Poet Laureate for London in 2014, and will have work published in Podium Poets anthology #2 in Autumn 2015. His poems are personal and often confessional, aiming to capture in new words life experiences and inner thoughts – in which he feels others may share. He finds simple words the most truthful, and hopes he is seen by the reader through his work. Read more and get in touch at jackcaithness.co.uk / info@jackcaithness.co.uk
Khatleen Minerve was born and lives in Mauritius. She’s a passionate portrait photographer who started taking shots six years ago and has been working as a freelancer for the past two. On the way, she earned a Law and Management degree. She loves to enjoy a cup of tea every hour or so.
